On 8th September, 2022, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a 28 feet tall statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, fashioned from a single jet black monolithic granite block weighing 280 tonnes by the celebrated Mysore-based sculptor Arun Yogiraj. The statue had been placed under the Gate Canopy facing India Gate at the end of ‘Kartavya Path’, formerly known as ‘Rajpath’ (designed by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, described by the well-known architectural historian Gavin Mark Stamp as ‘surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth (or of any other) century’, consequent upon the death of King George V, the first Windsor monarch and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, on 20th January, 1936), that had symbolically sheltered an imposing marble statue of the King, emblazoned with a flowing robe and complete with globus cruciger and sceptre, from the time of its inauguration on 14th November, 1939 that co-incidentally marked the 50th birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. In a powerful speech choked with visible emotion, Modi paid a glowing tribute to Netaji, ‘Netaji Subhash was the first Prime Minister of Akhand Bharat who had liberated Andaman even before 1947 and unfurled the tricolour.If India followed the path of Subhash Babu after Independence, what heights would the country be at today? But unfortunately, this great hero of ours was forgotten after independence.’

What is probably not that widely known about Netaji is that he was a true and faithful friend and an unflinching admirer of the Sikhs. After Bose resigned as the President of the Congress party on 29th April,1939 at the party’s session held at Tripuri, near Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, he convened a public rally at the historical Shraddhananda Park in Kolkata, on 3rd May, 1939. Hundreds of Sikhs attended the rally and some even travelled all the way from Punjab. It was here that the formation of the All India Forward Bloc was formally announced for carrying on the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’. Many Sikhs joined the party as founder-members, including one Chaudhari Jaimal Singh, a wealthy landowner from Dasuya in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab (referred to in the Mahabharata as being the seat of King Virata and popularly known as ‘Virat Ki Nagri’). He, like so many others of his Sikh brethren, was a truly magnanimous person. He stood up and announced that he would be making a spot donation of  Rs 1,000 to the party of Bose “paaji” (brother), with the promise to donate a further one lakh Rupees in the future. In July,1939, Bose announced the Committee of the Forward Bloc. It had Bose as its President and the reputed politician, newspaper editor and author Sardul Singh Kavseer from Punjab as its Vice-President.

When Netaji was protesting against the controversial ‘Holwell Monument’ commemorating the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ in July,1940, scores of patriotic Sikh youth walked every day from Rashbehari to Dalhousie in Kolkata to lend their active support to the cause of raising the monument to the ground. Netaji even had a close Sikh friend Niranjan Singh Talib by his side throughout the course of his historic escape from house arrest on 19th January,1941(dressed in Pathan attire and sporting a freshly harvested beard to hoodwink the British authorities!) right up to Peshawar. Talib was finally arrested, brought to Lahore and jailed, while Bose disappeared from the scene via Afghanistan, never to return again. The friendship with the Sikhs, however, remained untrammelled, with Kavseer succeeding Bose as the Bloc’s chairman. Bose finally arrived in Germany and his clarion call to Indian prisoners of war was well received and 1,200 soldiers, mostly Sikhs, joined a training camp located at Frankenburg, near Chemnitz in Germany. This camp was the precursor of the Indian National Army (INA). It was initially named Lashkar-iHind or Indian Legion. The first troops of the Indian Legion were recruited from Indian POWs captured at El Mekili, Libya, during the battles for Tobruk. The German forces in the Western Desert or the Afrika Corps under the charismatic General Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel, popularly known as the “Desert Fox”, selected a core group of 27 POWs as potential officers who were flown to Berlin in May,1941. This was followed by POWs being shipped by the Italian forces to Germany.  

In November,1941, a Free India Centre was set up in Berlin and soon a Free India Radio, on which Bose used to broadcast nightly, came into being. In the first official meeting of the Free India Centre on 2nd November, 1941 in Berlin, Bose was conferred the title of ‘Netaji’, ‘Jai Hind’ was introduced as the national greeting, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s patriotic song ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was adopted as the national anthem and Hindustani, the most widely spoken language in India, was chosen as the national language of Independent India. The number of POWs transferred to Germany grew to about 10,000 who were housed at the POW camp located at Annaberg-Bucholz , where Bose first interacted with them. As the numbers of POWs joining the Indian Legion swelled, the Legion was moved to Königsbrück, a town in the Bautzen district in Saxony, for further training. It was at Königsbrück that uniforms in German ‘feldgrau’ or “field grey” were first issued, bearing the badge of a leaping tiger. The formation of the Indian Legion was announced in January,1942. It did not, however, take oath until 26th August, 1942. The strength of the Indian Legion in the West ultimately rose to 4,500. On 26th January, 1943, India’s Freedom Day was celebrated with great splendour in the grand hall of Berlin’s first ‘grand hotel’ Kaiserhof Hotel in Wilhelmplatz, tastefully adorned with red tulips and white lilacs. Shortly thereafter, the German Postal Services issued a set of ten stamps in six different designs honouring the Indian Legion. These Indian Legion Stamps or “Cinderella Stamps” represent the first pictorial depiction of Sikh soldiers in postal history. The stamps were designed by a husband-wife duo of well-known German artists Warner and Maria Von Axter-Heudtlass, whose ‘AXHEU’ signature appears unobtrusively on the stamps.

The name of the political organization corresponding to the Indian Independence League in the East was the Free India Centre. The Sikhs, living in Malaya, Singapore and other countries of the region set up two secret anti-British groups, led principally by Giani Pritam Singh, the Secretary General of the Indian Independence League of Thailand and Malaya. Two Indian soldiers in the British army viz. Captain Mohan Singh and Captain Mohammad Akram, both from Punjab, were cut off from the British Indian Army and were wandering aimlessly in the jungles of Malaya when they came across Giani Pritam Singh and Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, Chief of Intelligence of the Japanese 15th Army. Giani Pritam Singh invited them to take up the cause of their motherland. Mohan Singh seized the opportunity without even batting an eyelid! He contacted Indian soldiers and prevailed upon them not to fight for the British but to seize the golden opportunity presented to them by the war for the liberation of India. It was decided by the Indian and Japanese Army officers and civilians in Malaya and Thailand to send a special team to Tokyo for consultations with the Japanese High Command as well as with well-known Indian revolutionaries residing there like the well known freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh (who had married  one Balveer  Kaur  belonging to a Jat Sikh family and ultimately became a member of the second Lok Sabha  defeating Atal Behari Vajpayee from the Hathras constituency in Uttar Pradesh) and the charismatic Pan-Asian revolutionary leader, writer and journalist Rash Behari Bose (popularly known as “Bose of Nakamuraya” as he had married Tosiko Soma, the daughter of  the owners of the famed Nakamuraya bakery and restaurant in Tokyo, and was instrumental in introducing Indian style curry or “Indo Karii” in Japan!) who had founded the India Independence League first in Japan and then in all the areas of South-East Asia occupied by Japan that had small pockets of Indians. The team included Mohan Singh, Niranjan Singh Gill and Giani Pritam Singh Along with the Japanese team, they flew to Tokyo in two planes in March,1942.

Unfortunately, the plane carrying Giani Pritam Singh crashed, killing him and other co-passengers instantaneously. At Tokyo, the Indian team met the Japanese Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo, Raja Mahendra Pratap and Rash Behari Bose. It was at Tokyo that the decision to form the INA was formally taken. It was also decided to hold a conference at Bangkok to seek the cooperation of over three million members of the Indian diaspora living all over South-East Asia. This was held from 15th June to 20th June, 1942 and was attended by 150 Indian delegates. The conference commenced with the raising of the tri-colour flag by Rash Behari Bose. Mohan Singh spoke for several hours emphasising the importance of and the imperative need for India’s freedom. The Conference decided to incorporate Indian troops and civilians of South-East Asia in the INA with Mohan Singh as the Commander-in-Chief with the avowed objective of giving a military dimension to India’s freedom movement. The members were called upon to adopt three cardinal principles – ‘Etihaad’, ‘Etmad’ and ‘Kurbani’ meaning Unity, Faith and Sacrifice. The Conference, in one of its important resolutions, invited Netaji to South-East Asia to lead the INA. The INA opened its headquarters at Mount Pleasant, a residential estate on the northern outskirts of Singapore. The anthem selected was the rousing ‘Sare Jhan Se Acchha Hindustan Hamara’ composed by the redoubtable Urdu poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal, affectionately known as ‘Allama Iqbal’. The first parade of the INA was held in August, 1942 at which the Indian tri-colour flag was hoisted and a short speech in Hindusthani was delivered by Mohan Singh. His speech was electrifying and touched the innermost chords of the troops who responded with wild enthusiasm and fervour. A large number of Sikhs voluntarily came forward. Mohan Singh established his headquarters at Nee Soon, a suburban town in the northern part of Singapore, with Lt Col.Niranjan Singh Gill as the Chief of Staff. The INA, however, was formally set in motion on 1st  September,1942 by which date over 42,000 Indian  POWs, including 28,000 Sikhs, had signed a solemn pledge to join it.

Netaji left Europe on 8th  February 1943 in a German submarine  U-180 under the command of Captain Werner Musenberg, and travelled to the southeast of Madagascar around the Cape of Good Hope where he was transferred to the Japanese submarine  I-29 at a secret rendezvous for the rest of the voyage to Japan. Netaji ultimately arrived at Tokyo on 13th June,1943. After discussing matters with General Tojo, he came to Singapore on 2nd July,1943. Two days later Rash Behari Bose handed over the leadership of the Indian Independence League to him. On 5th July,1943, Netaji revived the INA with Mohan Singh as the Commander-in-Chief and took the salute of the INA soldiers, dressed in military uniform. On 26th August, 1943, Netaji became the Supreme Commander of the INA renaming it as “Azad Hind Fauj”. He issued the following order:

‘...when we stand, the Azad Hind Fauj has to be like a wall of granite, when we march, the Azad Hind Fauj has to be like a steam roller. With the slogan “Chalo Dilli!” on your lips, let us continue to fight till the national flag flies over the Viceroy’s House in Delhi and the Azad Hind Fauj holds the victory parade inside the ancient Red Fort..”

The Azad Hind Fauj then had 12,000 Sikh soldiers out of its total operational strength of 20,000 troops. Another towering Sikh personality Giani Kesar Singh (who was a great freedom fighter and a prolific writer who authored 25 historical novels in Punjabi, especially on the Gadar Movement, and the best selling English treatise on ‘Indian Independence Movement in East Asia’) was appointed the Civil Administrator of the INA. On 16th November, 1943, a special ceremony took place on the occasion of the founding of the Indian National Provisional Government of Free India Centre at the very same  Kaiserhof Hotel in Berlin that turned out to be a scathing indictment of the British war induced hunger in India. Sikh soldiers of the Indian Legion were conspicuous by their large presence. To liberate India, a comprehensive action plan was drawn up by the INA and, accordingly, the headquarters of the Provisional Government were shifted to Rangoon in January, 1944. On 11th July, 1944, Netaji arranged a ceremonial parade at the tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar  in the  Shwe Degon Pagoda in Yangon and recited the last Moghul Emperor’s timeless couplet ‘Ghazion mein bu rahegi jab talak iman ki/ Takht-e-London tak chalegi tegh Hindustan ki!’ (As long as there remains the scent of faith in the hearts of our holy fighters/So long shall the sword of Hindustan flash before the throne of London).

After delivering a speech before an impressive gathering of over 60,000 people at Rangoon on the solemn occasion of India’s Freedom Day on 26th  January,1944, Netaji suddenly looked at the rose garland which was presented to him and said, ‘Friends, I know that this garland which you have gifted me today will dry up within a couple of days. But, I also know that the love and affection that you have for me in your heart will never dry up. If we see this as a mare garland then we all know that this will have no value once it dries. But, if we take this garland as a memento of our struggle for freedom then this becomes priceless. So, today I want you all to bid for the same. The money we collect from, this will be the first donation for the treasury of Azad Hind Rangoon. Now tell me, what price are you ready to pay for this garland.?’ The highest bid was an amazing sum of $7 Lakhs and was placed by one businessman Brijlal Jaiswal. As Netaji was about to announce him as the winner, one Sikh businessman Sardar Har Govind Singh ascended the dais and sat down beside Netaji’s feet and said, ‘Netaji aap se mera ek aarz hai, Singapore me mere do makan hain, apna garage me aath (8) truck hain, aur bangkok main bhi 3-4 lakh dollar honge. Kul mila kar 7 lakh doller ho sakta hai. Ye sab main abhi Aazad Hind ke naam likh deta hun; eske badle maherbani karke sirf ye mala mujh ko de dijiye.’ Netaji walked towards Govind Singh and was about to garland him when Govind Singh shouted, ‘ye aap kya kar rahe hai Netaji. Ye aap ke gale ka mala hai, ye mala main apne gale me kaise daloon! Ye mala aap mere haath me dijiye.’ That day, Govind Singh donated his entire life savings to buy the garland and embraced the INA.

The INA participated in the Japanese offensive on the Indo-Burma front in 1944 and the Sikh soldiers in particular displayed exceptional bravery. But the British forces repulsed the offensive and launched a counter-attack during the bitter winter of 1944-45. The Japanese as well as the INA were compelled to beat a hasty retreat and the war ended with Japan's unconditional surrender on 14th  August, 1945. Lamentably, most officers and men of the INA, numbering about 20,000, including Mohan Singh, had been taken prisoners by the British and brought back to India. They were ultimately set free during 1945 and Mohan Singh and his comrades of the INA were acclaimed far and wide for their indefinable valour and patriotism. After Independence, Mohan Singh entered active politics and joined the Indian National Congress. After a brief stint as a member of the legislative assembly in Punjab, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha for two terms. He strove relentlessly for the recognition of the members of the Azad Hind Fauj as worthy freedom fighters in the noble cause of the nation's freedom. The immeasurable contribution of the Sikhs in the INA was recognised by the Indian Post & Telegraphs Department which issued a set of two special stamps in the denominations of 15np and 55np each to mark the 67th Birth Anniversary of  Netaji in 1967.

Of these, the latter shows a black and white picture of Netaji with the national flag in the foreground and some Sikh soldiers in the background. The symbol of the INA is shown on the right. Significantly, Sikh army officers like Col.Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, Lt. Sardar Sadhu Singh and Lt. Sardar Ujagar Singh fought under the leadership of Netaji and Col. Dhillon was tried by the British at the INA trials conducted in the Red Fort in Delhi in 1945/46. Netaji was also closely connected with Sikh leaders like Sardar Baldev Singh (former Defence Minister of India in the Nehru cabinet who was one of the persons who had masterminded  Netaji’s escape from India), Achhar Singh Chhina (a Berkeley contemporary of Punjab’s former Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon), Sardar Mehnga Singh (who was the Secretary of  Bhartiya Janata Party's Amritsar unit and in whose name a road is named in Amritsar) and Sardar Sewa Singh Namdhari (at whose spacious residence Bose came in close contact with the local Indian community in Bangkok and who after Independence emerged as an active RSS leader and was a part of the cow protection movement in Delhi in 1966) in India’s struggle for freedom.

Last but not the least, Rawalpindi-born Shaheed Nanak Singh (who was named after Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism, and whose portrait hangs in the hallowed premises of the Golden Temple in Amritsar!), a prominent Sikh leader of West Punjab, and the father of my very dear Gujranwala born friend Lord Raminder “Rami” Ranger, a mighty Member of the House of Lords in London, was an ardent devotee of Netaji. Though a highly decorated Police Officer (with 29 Gold Commendation Certificates to his credit!), Shaheed Nanak Singh resigned from the imperialist British Police Force to join the freedom struggle and started his independent legal practice in Multan going on to become the Vice President of the Bar Association in Multan. He was a martyr, who vehemently opposed the unholy partition of India and as a result was a marked man, who was ruthlessly assassinated at the age of 43 while saving 600 innocent lives at the DAV School, Multan. Significantly, Shaheed Nanak Singh voluntarily took up cases to defend the hapless INA prisoners.  He was a valiant lawyer who dared take on such cases despite the fear of reprisals by the British Authorities! Netaji and the Sikhs were literally inseparable!

A BRIEF NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

The author is an internationally reputed senior lawyer practising in the Supreme Court of India and various High Courts and Tribunals in India. A He addressed a select gathering of MPs and other eminent persons in the House of Lords in February 2009 and was awarded the prestigious “Ambassador of Peace Award”. In April 2009, he was also invited to the House of  Commons. He was also invited by Chatham House and by the Universal Peace Federation in London several times. He is an avid debater, public speaker, writer, broadcaster, telecaster, artist, painter, sculptor, music critic and filmmaker. 

On 8th September, 2022, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a 28 feet tall statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, fashioned from a single jet black monolithic granite block weighing 280 tonnes by the celebrated Mysore-based sculptor Arun Yogiraj. The statue had been placed under the Gate Canopy facing India Gate at the end of ‘Kartavya Path’, formerly known as ‘Rajpath’ (designed by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, described by the well-known architectural historian Gavin Mark Stamp as ‘surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth (or of any other) century’, consequent upon the death of King George V, the first Windsor monarch and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, on 20th January, 1936), that had symbolically sheltered an imposing marble statue of the King, emblazoned with a flowing robe and complete with globus cruciger and sceptre, from the time of its inauguration on 14th November, 1939 that co-incidentally marked the 50th birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. In a powerful speech choked with visible emotion, Modi paid a glowing tribute to Netaji, ‘Netaji Subhash was the first Prime Minister of Akhand Bharat who had liberated Andaman even before 1947 and unfurled the tricolour.If India followed the path of Subhash Babu after Independence, what heights would the country be at today? But unfortunately, this great hero of ours was forgotten after independence.’

What is probably not that widely known about Netaji is that he was a true and faithful friend and an unflinching admirer of the Sikhs. After Bose resigned as the President of the Congress party on 29th April,1939 at the party’s session held at Tripuri, near Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, he convened a public rally at the historical Shraddhananda Park in Kolkata, on 3rd May, 1939. Hundreds of Sikhs attended the rally and some even travelled all the way from Punjab. It was here that the formation of the All India Forward Bloc was formally announced for carrying on the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’. Many Sikhs joined the party as founder-members, including one Chaudhari Jaimal Singh, a wealthy landowner from Dasuya in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab (referred to in the Mahabharata as being the seat of King Virata and popularly known as ‘Virat Ki Nagri’). He, like so many others of his Sikh brethren, was a truly magnanimous person. He stood up and announced that he would be making a spot donation of  Rs 1,000 to the party of Bose “paaji” (brother), with the promise to donate a further one lakh Rupees in the future. In July,1939, Bose announced the Committee of the Forward Bloc. It had Bose as its President and the reputed politician, newspaper editor and author Sardul Singh Kavseer from Punjab as its Vice-President.

When Netaji was protesting against the controversial ‘Holwell Monument’ commemorating the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ in July,1940, scores of patriotic Sikh youth walked every day from Rashbehari to Dalhousie in Kolkata to lend their active support to the cause of raising the monument to the ground. Netaji even had a close Sikh friend Niranjan Singh Talib by his side throughout the course of his historic escape from house arrest on 19th January,1941(dressed in Pathan attire and sporting a freshly harvested beard to hoodwink the British authorities!) right up to Peshawar. Talib was finally arrested, brought to Lahore and jailed, while Bose disappeared from the scene via Afghanistan, never to return again. The friendship with the Sikhs, however, remained untrammelled, with Kavseer succeeding Bose as the Bloc’s chairman. Bose finally arrived in Germany and his clarion call to Indian prisoners of war was well received and 1,200 soldiers, mostly Sikhs, joined a training camp located at Frankenburg, near Chemnitz in Germany. This camp was the precursor of the Indian National Army (INA). It was initially named Lashkar-iHind or Indian Legion. The first troops of the Indian Legion were recruited from Indian POWs captured at El Mekili, Libya, during the battles for Tobruk. The German forces in the Western Desert or the Afrika Corps under the charismatic General Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel, popularly known as the “Desert Fox”, selected a core group of 27 POWs as potential officers who were flown to Berlin in May,1941. This was followed by POWs being shipped by the Italian forces to Germany.  

In November,1941, a Free India Centre was set up in Berlin and soon a Free India Radio, on which Bose used to broadcast nightly, came into being. In the first official meeting of the Free India Centre on 2nd November, 1941 in Berlin, Bose was conferred the title of ‘Netaji’, ‘Jai Hind’ was introduced as the national greeting, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s patriotic song ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was adopted as the national anthem and Hindustani, the most widely spoken language in India, was chosen as the national language of Independent India. The number of POWs transferred to Germany grew to about 10,000 who were housed at the POW camp located at Annaberg-Bucholz , where Bose first interacted with them. As the numbers of POWs joining the Indian Legion swelled, the Legion was moved to Königsbrück, a town in the Bautzen district in Saxony, for further training. It was at Königsbrück that uniforms in German ‘feldgrau’ or “field grey” were first issued, bearing the badge of a leaping tiger. The formation of the Indian Legion was announced in January,1942. It did not, however, take oath until 26th August, 1942. The strength of the Indian Legion in the West ultimately rose to 4,500. On 26th January, 1943, India’s Freedom Day was celebrated with great splendour in the grand hall of Berlin’s first ‘grand hotel’ Kaiserhof Hotel in Wilhelmplatz, tastefully adorned with red tulips and white lilacs. Shortly thereafter, the German Postal Services issued a set of ten stamps in six different designs honouring the Indian Legion. These Indian Legion Stamps or “Cinderella Stamps” represent the first pictorial depiction of Sikh soldiers in postal history. The stamps were designed by a husband-wife duo of well-known German artists Warner and Maria Von Axter-Heudtlass, whose ‘AXHEU’ signature appears unobtrusively on the stamps.

The name of the political organization corresponding to the Indian Independence League in the East was the Free India Centre. The Sikhs, living in Malaya, Singapore and other countries of the region set up two secret anti-British groups, led principally by Giani Pritam Singh, the Secretary General of the Indian Independence League of Thailand and Malaya. Two Indian soldiers in the British army viz. Captain Mohan Singh and Captain Mohammad Akram, both from Punjab, were cut off from the British Indian Army and were wandering aimlessly in the jungles of Malaya when they came across Giani Pritam Singh and Major Fujiwara Iwaichi, Chief of Intelligence of the Japanese 15th Army. Giani Pritam Singh invited them to take up the cause of their motherland. Mohan Singh seized the opportunity without even batting an eyelid! He contacted Indian soldiers and prevailed upon them not to fight for the British but to seize the golden opportunity presented to them by the war for the liberation of India. It was decided by the Indian and Japanese Army officers and civilians in Malaya and Thailand to send a special team to Tokyo for consultations with the Japanese High Command as well as with well-known Indian revolutionaries residing there like the well known freedom fighter, journalist, writer and revolutionary social reformist of India Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh (who had married  one Balveer  Kaur  belonging to a Jat Sikh family and ultimately became a member of the second Lok Sabha  defeating Atal Behari Vajpayee from the Hathras constituency in Uttar Pradesh) and the charismatic Pan-Asian revolutionary leader, writer and journalist Rash Behari Bose (popularly known as “Bose of Nakamuraya” as he had married Tosiko Soma, the daughter of  the owners of the famed Nakamuraya bakery and restaurant in Tokyo, and was instrumental in introducing Indian style curry or “Indo Karii” in Japan!) who had founded the India Independence League first in Japan and then in all the areas of South-East Asia occupied by Japan that had small pockets of Indians. The team included Mohan Singh, Niranjan Singh Gill and Giani Pritam Singh Along with the Japanese team, they flew to Tokyo in two planes in March,1942.

Unfortunately, the plane carrying Giani Pritam Singh crashed, killing him and other co-passengers instantaneously. At Tokyo, the Indian team met the Japanese Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo, Raja Mahendra Pratap and Rash Behari Bose. It was at Tokyo that the decision to form the INA was formally taken. It was also decided to hold a conference at Bangkok to seek the cooperation of over three million members of the Indian diaspora living all over South-East Asia. This was held from 15th June to 20th June, 1942 and was attended by 150 Indian delegates. The conference commenced with the raising of the tri-colour flag by Rash Behari Bose. Mohan Singh spoke for several hours emphasising the importance of and the imperative need for India’s freedom. The Conference decided to incorporate Indian troops and civilians of South-East Asia in the INA with Mohan Singh as the Commander-in-Chief with the avowed objective of giving a military dimension to India’s freedom movement. The members were called upon to adopt three cardinal principles – ‘Etihaad’, ‘Etmad’ and ‘Kurbani’ meaning Unity, Faith and Sacrifice. The Conference, in one of its important resolutions, invited Netaji to South-East Asia to lead the INA. The INA opened its headquarters at Mount Pleasant, a residential estate on the northern outskirts of Singapore. The anthem selected was the rousing ‘Sare Jhan Se Acchha Hindustan Hamara’ composed by the redoubtable Urdu poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal, affectionately known as ‘Allama Iqbal’. The first parade of the INA was held in August, 1942 at which the Indian tri-colour flag was hoisted and a short speech in Hindusthani was delivered by Mohan Singh. His speech was electrifying and touched the innermost chords of the troops who responded with wild enthusiasm and fervour. A large number of Sikhs voluntarily came forward. Mohan Singh established his headquarters at Nee Soon, a suburban town in the northern part of Singapore, with Lt Col.Niranjan Singh Gill as the Chief of Staff. The INA, however, was formally set in motion on 1st  September,1942 by which date over 42,000 Indian  POWs, including 28,000 Sikhs, had signed a solemn pledge to join it.

Netaji left Europe on 8th  February 1943 in a German submarine  U-180 under the command of Captain Werner Musenberg, and travelled to the southeast of Madagascar around the Cape of Good Hope where he was transferred to the Japanese submarine  I-29 at a secret rendezvous for the rest of the voyage to Japan. Netaji ultimately arrived at Tokyo on 13th June,1943. After discussing matters with General Tojo, he came to Singapore on 2nd July,1943. Two days later Rash Behari Bose handed over the leadership of the Indian Independence League to him. On 5th July,1943, Netaji revived the INA with Mohan Singh as the Commander-in-Chief and took the salute of the INA soldiers, dressed in military uniform. On 26th August, 1943, Netaji became the Supreme Commander of the INA renaming it as “Azad Hind Fauj”. He issued the following order:

‘...when we stand, the Azad Hind Fauj has to be like a wall of granite, when we march, the Azad Hind Fauj has to be like a steam roller. With the slogan “Chalo Dilli!” on your lips, let us continue to fight till the national flag flies over the Viceroy’s House in Delhi and the Azad Hind Fauj holds the victory parade inside the ancient Red Fort..”

The Azad Hind Fauj then had 12,000 Sikh soldiers out of its total operational strength of 20,000 troops. Another towering Sikh personality Giani Kesar Singh (who was a great freedom fighter and a prolific writer who authored 25 historical novels in Punjabi, especially on the Gadar Movement, and the best selling English treatise on ‘Indian Independence Movement in East Asia’) was appointed the Civil Administrator of the INA. On 16th November, 1943, a special ceremony took place on the occasion of the founding of the Indian National Provisional Government of Free India Centre at the very same  Kaiserhof Hotel in Berlin that turned out to be a scathing indictment of the British war induced hunger in India. Sikh soldiers of the Indian Legion were conspicuous by their large presence. To liberate India, a comprehensive action plan was drawn up by the INA and, accordingly, the headquarters of the Provisional Government were shifted to Rangoon in January, 1944. On 11th July, 1944, Netaji arranged a ceremonial parade at the tomb of Bahadur Shah Zafar  in the  Shwe Degon Pagoda in Yangon and recited the last Moghul Emperor’s timeless couplet ‘Ghazion mein bu rahegi jab talak iman ki/ Takht-e-London tak chalegi tegh Hindustan ki!’ (As long as there remains the scent of faith in the hearts of our holy fighters/So long shall the sword of Hindustan flash before the throne of London).

After delivering a speech before an impressive gathering of over 60,000 people at Rangoon on the solemn occasion of India’s Freedom Day on 26th  January,1944, Netaji suddenly looked at the rose garland which was presented to him and said, ‘Friends, I know that this garland which you have gifted me today will dry up within a couple of days. But, I also know that the love and affection that you have for me in your heart will never dry up. If we see this as a mare garland then we all know that this will have no value once it dries. But, if we take this garland as a memento of our struggle for freedom then this becomes priceless. So, today I want you all to bid for the same. The money we collect from, this will be the first donation for the treasury of Azad Hind Rangoon. Now tell me, what price are you ready to pay for this garland.?’ The highest bid was an amazing sum of $7 Lakhs and was placed by one businessman Brijlal Jaiswal. As Netaji was about to announce him as the winner, one Sikh businessman Sardar Har Govind Singh ascended the dais and sat down beside Netaji’s feet and said, ‘Netaji aap se mera ek aarz hai, Singapore me mere do makan hain, apna garage me aath (8) truck hain, aur bangkok main bhi 3-4 lakh dollar honge. Kul mila kar 7 lakh doller ho sakta hai. Ye sab main abhi Aazad Hind ke naam likh deta hun; eske badle maherbani karke sirf ye mala mujh ko de dijiye.’ Netaji walked towards Govind Singh and was about to garland him when Govind Singh shouted, ‘ye aap kya kar rahe hai Netaji. Ye aap ke gale ka mala hai, ye mala main apne gale me kaise daloon! Ye mala aap mere haath me dijiye.’ That day, Govind Singh donated his entire life savings to buy the garland and embraced the INA.

The INA participated in the Japanese offensive on the Indo-Burma front in 1944 and the Sikh soldiers in particular displayed exceptional bravery. But the British forces repulsed the offensive and launched a counter-attack during the bitter winter of 1944-45. The Japanese as well as the INA were compelled to beat a hasty retreat and the war ended with Japan's unconditional surrender on 14th  August, 1945. Lamentably, most officers and men of the INA, numbering about 20,000, including Mohan Singh, had been taken prisoners by the British and brought back to India. They were ultimately set free during 1945 and Mohan Singh and his comrades of the INA were acclaimed far and wide for their indefinable valour and patriotism. After Independence, Mohan Singh entered active politics and joined the Indian National Congress. After a brief stint as a member of the legislative assembly in Punjab, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha for two terms. He strove relentlessly for the recognition of the members of the Azad Hind Fauj as worthy freedom fighters in the noble cause of the nation's freedom. The immeasurable contribution of the Sikhs in the INA was recognised by the Indian Post & Telegraphs Department which issued a set of two special stamps in the denominations of 15np and 55np each to mark the 67th Birth Anniversary of  Netaji in 1967.

Of these, the latter shows a black and white picture of Netaji with the national flag in the foreground and some Sikh soldiers in the background. The symbol of the INA is shown on the right. Significantly, Sikh army officers like Col.Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, Lt. Sardar Sadhu Singh and Lt. Sardar Ujagar Singh fought under the leadership of Netaji and Col. Dhillon was tried by the British at the INA trials conducted in the Red Fort in Delhi in 1945/46. Netaji was also closely connected with Sikh leaders like Sardar Baldev Singh (former Defence Minister of India in the Nehru cabinet who was one of the persons who had masterminded  Netaji’s escape from India), Achhar Singh Chhina (a Berkeley contemporary of Punjab’s former Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon), Sardar Mehnga Singh (who was the Secretary of  Bhartiya Janata Party's Amritsar unit and in whose name a road is named in Amritsar) and Sardar Sewa Singh Namdhari (at whose spacious residence Bose came in close contact with the local Indian community in Bangkok and who after Independence emerged as an active RSS leader and was a part of the cow protection movement in Delhi in 1966) in India’s struggle for freedom.

Last but not the least, Rawalpindi-born Shaheed Nanak Singh (who was named after Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism, and whose portrait hangs in the hallowed premises of the Golden Temple in Amritsar!), a prominent Sikh leader of West Punjab, and the father of my very dear Gujranwala born friend Lord Raminder “Rami” Ranger, a mighty Member of the House of Lords in London, was an ardent devotee of Netaji. Though a highly decorated Police Officer (with 29 Gold Commendation Certificates to his credit!), Shaheed Nanak Singh resigned from the imperialist British Police Force to join the freedom struggle and started his independent legal practice in Multan going on to become the Vice President of the Bar Association in Multan. He was a martyr, who vehemently opposed the unholy partition of India and as a result was a marked man, who was ruthlessly assassinated at the age of 43 while saving 600 innocent lives at the DAV School, Multan. Significantly, Shaheed Nanak Singh voluntarily took up cases to defend the hapless INA prisoners.  He was a valiant lawyer who dared take on such cases despite the fear of reprisals by the British Authorities! Netaji and the Sikhs were literally inseparable!

A BRIEF NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

The author is an internationally reputed senior lawyer practising in the Supreme Court of India and various High Courts and Tribunals in India. A He addressed a select gathering of MPs and other eminent persons in the House of Lords in February 2009 and was awarded the prestigious “Ambassador of Peace Award”. In April 2009, he was also invited to the House of  Commons. He was also invited by Chatham House and by the Universal Peace Federation in London several times. He is an avid debater, public speaker, writer, broadcaster, telecaster, artist, painter, sculptor, music critic and filmmaker.